Shoot Freestyle Motocross

Toby Whittington performs stunts during a practice run for the Freestyle Motocross show at Ford Arena in Beaumont on Friday, July 29, 2005.

If this tour comes to your town, shoot it. They are cool (no problems with IDs or access), and they are fun to watch. I shot a media practice session before the first evening. This let me set up my strobes and work the arena from different angles.

If time allows, try to shoot a live show as well. The lighting is better, fans make a better background and they'll do the extremely dangerous stunts for competition.

There is one visual problem. The images can all start to look alike. I shot from all around the arena. Although the riders and the stunts are different, the images all have the same look (vertical). So, if you want to pull a package out of it rather than a front and inside pair, you'll need to work riders on the floor as well as the aerials. Since I knew we would run a pair, I concentrated on the jumps.

Due to the shapes they make, and how high they jump (almost to the ceiling), images like these are best shot at a 65-degree front position with a 400mm lens on a dit from the top of a normal arena (1st tier at major arenas). If shooting available light, a side view with a 200mm or 300mm can mix up the visuals, but my strobe created shadows and a background sign was annoying.